


re: you're gonna have to talk about it sometime

by lazulisong



Series: re: re: re: re: blond joke [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Memories, sam wilson: professional sane person, steve is the saddest panda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 19:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1953141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/pseuds/lazulisong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FLYBOY: you can't hide from it forever<br/>FLYBOY: whatever I'm not your therapist thank Christ and the fishes<br/>FLYBOY: yooo Rogers pick up your phoooone<br/>FLYBOY: when youre done sulking let me know if you want to get ice cream while JB has his appt<br/>FLYBOY: the fancy ice cream shop has a new fancy flavor with bacon in it :D<br/>S ROGERS: In my day we had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry and we were grateful for it.<br/>FLYBOY: cry more, white boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	re: you're gonna have to talk about it sometime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aliassmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliassmith/gifts).



> thanks to regonym and verity for following along, and to verity especially for checking my ptsd shit. ♥
> 
> I have now written twice the amount of words for stupid side stories of my Marvel Bang than I have written words on it and everything is horrible. STEVE. SHUT UP, STEVE, NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ANY MORE.

Re: youre gonna have to talk sometime rogers (was RE: NOT REALLY THANK YOU ANYWAY SAM (was Re: you want to talk about it?))

> > > >dude every time he comes out of his room in that hired thug outfit pepper got him you have to go stick your head in the freezer it's not subtle at all
> 
> > >I don't know what you're talking about.
> 
> >you want me to bring natasha into this because so help me i will
> 
> Thanks, Sam, you're a real standup fella.

Steve pokes his phone off hard enough that he feels guilty about it, even though Stark had spent more time than Steve wanted to think about making it serum-proof. It's not satisfying as hanging up on Sam would be. There's no angry jangle and slam and so Steve spends five minutes fuming silently instead of getting it all out at once.

It's weird, the things he misses about the past. 

One of the things he missed most about the past (before it came back to him and started blatantly stealing his shirts because it refuses to do laundry just like it did in 1939) wanders past, drinking milk straight from the bottle. It's organic milk from a farm in upstate New York that Steve has to buy at the Union Square farmer's market. He washes out the bottles and brings them back for the deposit. Steve kind of likes going to the Greenmarket anyway. It reminds him of home, of following his mother around and watching as she haggled a few precious cents off the price of their vegetables.

Bucky stops and looks at him, head tilted like a curious bird. 

"Hey, Buck," says Steve. His phone is vibrating against the table. Sam's probably spent the five minutes Steve's spent glowering at his phone in composing an eloquently sarcastic ode to Steve's determined obliviousness and general stupidity. Or else he really has called Natasha and he's going to have twenty texts all filled with emoticons and black humor. Either way he doesn't want to pick up his phone ever again. "I got you the strawberry-guava juice. It's in the freezer."

"Thank you," says Bucky. He turns to the refrigerator and begins to rummage inside. Steve watches his phone buzz merrily across the table and decides that putting his arms on the table and his face in his arms and refusing to look up is probably the best life decision he can make. 

He hears Bucky rummaging around in the refrigerator, and then opening and closing the cupboard. They'll have to leave to get to Bucky's therapy appointment soon, but Steve still has a couple of minutes to pretend everything is okay. 

Bucky sets something beside Steve and carefully, very carefully, rubs Steve's hair with his flesh hand. Steve looks up enough to see a full glass of milk and an opened can of chocolate Ensure with a straw in it. 

Steve's kind of touched. "Thanks, pal," he says. 

He drinks the milk and the Ensure and feels brave enough to pick up his phone and check his messages.

FLYBOY: you can't hide from it forever  
FLYBOY: whatever I'm not your therapist thank Christ and the fishes  
FLYBOY: yooo Rogers pick up your phoooone  
FLYBOY: when youre done sulking let me know if you want to get ice cream while JB has his appt  
FLYBOY: the fancy ice cream shop has a new fancy flavor with bacon in it :D  
S ROGERS: In my day we had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry and we were grateful for it.  
FLYBOY: cry more, white boy.

* * *

It takes Bucky a while to get dressed for his therapy appointment, as usual. Today, though, he doesn't ask for Steve's help, which means it's pretty good in his head. There's a rule that Bucky can only ask Steve to decide one piece of clothing for him and he's gotten to the point where more often than not he can pick everything out himself. Bucky knows better than to ask for Sam's help, because Sam will always pick something out like his socks or his underwear or a hair tie. Steve will pick out his shirt or his pants. 

They're both trying really hard.

Bucky's dressed in soft clothes, soft colors; two or three shirts, undershirt, long sleeved shirt and t-shirt over it; the long-sleeved shirt drapes over his wrists and partly over his hands. He picks up Steve's hooded sweatshirt and looks at Steve sideways, not quite asking permission. Steve doesn't say anything and so Bucky pulls it over his shoulders and puts the hood up. He looks smaller like this, as unthreatening as he can be. 

"Do you want to drive?" says Steve.

Bucky shakes his head and walks out the door. When Steve finishes locking up and goes down the stairs toward his bike, Bucky is already perched on the back of the seat. He's not looking out at anything in particular but he seems aware of everything going around him. When Steve swings his foot over and starts the engine, Bucky puts his arms around Steve's waist and hangs on tight. Steve takes a deep breath and kicks off. 

He wants to say, _Do you remember when I was still small and sick, how you borrowed Eddie O'Sullivan's motorbike and took me out to the country for a day? How I hung on to your waist like it was the only solid thing left in the universe, and how you laughed for sheer joy at the speed we went, even though we weren't going more than twenty or thirty miles an hour? Do you remember the smell of the peaches you bought for me and the sun glowing through the trees in the field where we stopped to eat? Do you remember how you made me take deep breaths in, like you thought if only I had enough of the fresh cool air I'd stop coughing in the city?_

_Do you remember in the war, how Stark made me the motorcycle and you swung up behind me and held on tight, tighter than I had ever dared to hold on to you? Do you remember flying down the dusty roads at sixty - seventy miles an hour, and how it was the one time I heard you laugh, really joyously laugh, and then you leaned into me and I felt your heart thumping through your clothes and my uniform and I was so happy I wanted to die?_

_Why can't you remember me?_

He doesn't say any of it, of course; he never says any of it because it wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't help. When they reach the VA building Steve stops in front of the doors and Bucky swings off the bike. Steve doesn't wait for him to go inside the doors. He waves at Bucky and takes off again. It's hard not to watch Bucky go into the building, go through the hallways, up the stairs (Bucky avoids elevators still), into the office and sit in the waiting room until the doctor calls for him. Bucky's got to do this for himself. 

The drive to Sam's house feels longer than it should without Bucky's warmth behind him. He pulls up, turns off the ignition, and sits on the bike for a minute, trying to get his head back into shape. He hears the door open and close and looks up to see Sam studying him.

"You know what," says Sam finally, "why don't we take my car." It's not a question.

"Sure," says Steve anyway, and gets off the bike.

* * *

The fancy ice cream shop has a pretty long line, even for the middle of the morning on Tuesday, but Sam doesn't try to make him talk or do anything but read the list of ice creams that someone has carefully hand-lettered in different colored chalks and fancy lettering on the blackboard behind the counter. Steve picks a scoop of lemon-basil sorbet and a scoop of lavender-rose vanilla. Sam gets a scoop of olive oil and a scoop of maple-nut with bacon pieces.

They walk outside and Sam leads him to a little park opposite the shop. The sun is shining and the park smells like new-mown grass. Steve takes a deep breath in and feels his shoulders relax a little. Sam has his back. 

"Seriously," says Sam, after they've licked around the cones so the ice cream won't melt into their hands. "I'm not going to bug you about it, man, but are you doing okay?"

Steve thinks about it for a minute, giving the question the attention it deserves. He says, "It could be worse."

Sam accepts this at face value, says, "I'm glad things are going better, man." He stops for a minute to chase a stray drop of ice cream and adds, "I know you aren't going to do anything about it now, and I respect that, but man, you gotta decide what you want to do when he's feeling more with it."

Steve groans out loud and rubs his face with the hand not holding his ice cream. "It doesn't even matter," he says, "Bucky never looked twice at a guy."

"Really?" says Sam. "Because I saw those videos at the Smithsonian, dude, and let me tell you what, if I had a guy who looked at me like that I would be first in line at the courthouse the day they let me get a license." He takes a bite of his ice cream and adds, more gently, "I understand, you know? Me and Riley -- we weren't like that, not really. But I would have done anything for him."

"I know," Steve says, throat tight. 

"So don't be stupid," says Sam, punching Steve's arm lightly enough to not injure his own fist. "Don't -- look, just don't martyr yourself when you don't have to, okay?"

"Ugh," says Steve, pretending to rub his arm. "No promises."

"And if you're not going to do anything, stop staring at his ass when he's wearing that stupid Armani thing," says Sam. "It's embarrassing. It's like watching an eighth grader realize there's such a thing as a cute butt in this world."

"Thanks, Wilson, you're the best pal a guy could ask for," says Steve.

"Second best," says Sam, "I ain't ever riding with you on that damn bike, number one." 

"Fair," says Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> by the way while I was wheatgoogling for this shit I discovered that the Ensure website has recipes for their produce, one of which is _vegetable quiche made with vanilla Ensure_ and my resulting hysterics were all over Twitter. fwiw they drink either regular Ensure or Ensure Plus, which is basically Ensure with 110 more calories per bottle. I didn't google Steve's calorie requirements because I was pretty sure I'd get about ten different answers but I'm going on the theory that they both need at least twice the amount that a non-enhanced athlete of their age, size and muscle mass would require. so ... they drink a fuckload of nutritional drinks. especially Bucky who in this universe has problems with food mostly involving being frozen and dethawed repeatedly and getting his system super fucked over. he is not anorexic or bulimic he just .... can't handle food very well.


End file.
